'Ukiyo-e Heroes'

Print #4 - Infestation

Title: Infestation

Cartouche: "Wanderer of Skies - Iron Will, Iron Skin"

Comments from Jed: "When I began to work on creating Samus as a medieval warrior, I originally thought about giving her a bow - a bow and arrow. But a friend talked me out of that, and convinced me to stick with the arm cannon, which is just so integral with this character. So this giant cast-iron dragon cannon is what I came up with; it feels kind of old and yet new at the same time.

"For the attackers - the jellyfish kind of creatures - I wanted them to look 'other worldly' and alien, and yet physical and threatening, so I actually referenced some of the old Japanese shunga for depictions of um ... well you know. I then sketched a bit, added some teeth here and there, and I feel that the results do indeed look very menacing!"

Comments from Dave: "My first thoughts on seeing this design were of course directed at the mass of hair ... "Cutting that is going to be fun!" And indeed it was, as you can see if you watch the close-up video of that work that I uploaded to our channel on YouTube. But the rest of the print was no walk in the park - those background tones are created with multiple overprintings, and getting the colour separation worked out was not trivial, nor is the printing job itself. This was one of the tougher ones in the series to produce, but well worth it, we feel."